As someone who used to recreationally skydive (and would again if he could afford it), I found this article fun reading.
People ask me all the time what happens if the chute doesn’t open. From now on I should just hand them this.
(Via Instapundit.)
Defending the liberal tradition in history, science, and philosophy.
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Um! I think I’ll walk.
Lots of additional reasons here why my wife and I will stick with our long-earlier decision never to fly, other than for the most dire of family emergency-related reasons. And that means ourselves and our four children; emergencies among inlaws will get only phone calls or emails, and if needed, sympathy cards.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
If your main doesn’t open, your reserve has a chip that evaluates six different factors and springs the reserve if you’re incapacitated.
When I skydived, they told me the real danger was releasing an opened main chute less than 500 feet off the ground (your reserve doesn’t have time to open and brake your fall below that height). It was the only way they’d ever seen anyone die.
I’m with Arnold on flying, but I just hate airports and the associated delays.
Skydiving is in fact less dangerous than quite a few recreational activities; recreational boaters and hunters are generally more at risk of dying at their chosen sport, from what I’ve heard. Can’t back that up but it wouldn’t surprise me; skydiving mostly only feels dangerous.
That said, there’s more than one scenario that can cause you to bounce. The reserve can fail. Or it can get tangled, which amounts to the same thing. The automatic activation of the chute can also fail. Anyway, there are several vectors that can cause you to not have a functioning chute when you hit the ground. You can also die if you land in the water and don’t know what you’re doing (or even if you do), because if that chute comes down around you while you’re thrashing around, drowning is a very real possibility.
They’re right that landing on water will do you no great favors in free fall, but you -could- luck- out and get away with it.
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